Observations in China

I'm currently in China (my wife is Chinese and we come here a couple of times per year to visit) and I've been traveling to China for about 18 years. Some observations this trip in no particular order.

We arrived about a week ago in Beijing and traveled by train to Wuhan where my wife's father is in the hospital to have bladder stones removed and prostate TERP. We have been visiting him in the hospital every day. Since my wife is an internal medicine doctor in the US, we have been making comparisons to the differences in health care. The same procedure in the US would require the patient to show up the night before surgery having not eaten for 12 hours. Here, the patient is kept in the hospital for about 6 days before the surgery and on IV fluids for several days. My wife's father is borderline diabetic so his sugar levels must be monitored, yet here, they consider fructose to be "safe" for diabetics so they gave him IV fructose most every day. They then express concern about his diet because his sugar levels were shooting up to levels we had never observed at home. My wife mentioned this, but did not want to make too many waves so she did not press the issue. As far as procedures, they seem to have at least as good a result here as in the US and the doctors are very skilled in their area of expertise. A major difference is in nursing. Here the family is responsible for the greater patient care including food, turning, bed pans, etc. The nurses take care of hanging the IV's, connecting to patient monitors, and blood testing. The family is responsible for WATCHING the patient monitor and calling the nurse if any levels are out of range. We spent one night there right after the operation and after that, we hired a sitter to take on those responsibilities. Post-op they usually have the patient in for about 7 days vs our 3 days. He is post-op 4 days today and doing fine.

It's interesting talking to the locals (through my wife as interpreter). Most Chinese are guilty of "America worship". They are completely convinced that in the USA we are walking on streets of gold and everyone is happy. They really have low regard for their own "government" and freely express it. One taxi driver was heaping praise on the USA and bad-mouthing the Beijing masters. When I asked him whether he believes any of the "news" in China, he was instant in his response "All Bullshit!!" He does not believe any of it. I told him that I only believe about 10-20% of our media. I'm sure he considers our media as accurate, and I wanted to let him know otherwise. I've yet to find a Chinese taxi driver who actually likes the government. They are stuck in a system where the only people who "own" taxi companies are wealthy individuals with strong family ties to the biggest government officials. There is a lot of cronyism here.

The number of people in China is unimaginable to most Americans. We think that any building over 10 stories is pretty tall. In every city here most apartment buildings are in the 20-30 story range and they are almost side-by-side. The drive from my wife's apartment (which they own) on the east of Wuhan to the hospital on the west side is 11 miles and takes between 30-45 minutes depending on traffic and the entire route is flanked by buildings in the 20-45 story range. This hospital complex has 3 buildings of 16-20 stories.

Wuhan just opened their first subway line a week ago and we tried to ride it on the 3rd day but gave up after seeing the long lines of people buying tickets. The next day we had another chance during a "slow" traffic period. We only had a short line to buy tickets and after fighting the crowds to the platform managed to squeeze onto the first train. Sardine city!. The number of people riding the subway even overloaded their exit gates. You are supposed to put your plastic coin into the slot to open the gate to let you out, but this process proved to slow for the number of people so they had girls with baskets at the exit gates (which were locked open) just collecting the coins in the baskets as the mob files by.

We usually travel by train within the country which is pretty efficient (those commies sure can make the trains run on time). I like to travel on the overnight sleeper train as you only lose a couple of hours since you are sleeping for most of the trip. Many people now prefer the Bullet Trains as they make the 10 hour Beijing to Wuhan trip in only 5 hours. I see this as a waste of 3 hours though and have never ridden the bullets. Even though they have only had bullet trains for a couple of years and the Wuhan route has only been open for maybe 10 months, they are adding trains like crazy. We were at the train ticket agency yesterday and asked about whether we should buy tickets several days in advance if we want to ride the bullet train and the guy said "Of course, there are only 11 trains per day so you need to buy ahead of time". Eleven trains on a route that has only been open for 10 months and it's still not enough. I'm wondering how the train manufacturers are even keeping up with demand...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the people packed into those cities like that because I'm guessing something like 80% of the population lives by the coast? Leaving a huge amount of land almost unused.

Originally Posted by Origanalist

There would be riots in the streets, if boobus gave one shit about his honor.

Christianity is growing here in China. I've been to a couple of churches and since I really can't understand Chinese very well, I have to rely on my wife who tells me the messages are pretty much the same as from a church in the USA (but then most of our churches seem to be in bed with the government so that's not saying much).

One thing I've learned from traveling is that it seems that all people have the same basic goals. They want to care for and advance their position and the position of their families. Families care for and nurture their children and try to make their lives better. There will always be dis-functional families of course, but those are the minority.

Most of the people live in the cities because that's where the opportunities are and where they can "get ahead". There are vast areas in the west of China that are almost uninhabited. Major cities in China have 10 million or more people. On million is considered a small city. I always take lots of pictures but I don't usually post them online as it's a bit of an effort and I'm usually pressed for time. Maybe you can recommend an online photo sharing site that will not make me sign away all rights to my photos (like google tried) and where I don't have to be concerned about being profiled even more than I already am. I recently tried newsgroups after being away from them for a couple of years and I've found that they've even managed to "tame" those. No more bootleg copies of anything that I could find in the binary groups. Guess the "wild" internet is truly changing (sad to say).

I chuckle a bit after reading your comments on China. I've lived in South Korea for ten years. There are people here who worship the US too. Seoul reminds me a lot of what you said about crowds and tall buildings.

Quite a few people in South Korea don't trust their government either. Korea is very socialist. It reminds me of the Europe you hear about in the news.

If you have any questions about South Korea feel free to ask me. I live in Gangnam (Gangnam Style).

China is pretty safe. I know there are drugs and crime here but the most I've ever witnessed is shoplifting and minor theft. I've never seen anyone with a gun other than sometimes a military guard at a military post (and not many of those). The cops don't have guns so you're chance of being shot is pretty small here (I sound like an anti-gun nut...). If you are caught doing something the government thugs don't like (such as bad mouthing them) you could find yourself at the end of one of their guns when they execute you, but you really have to throw it in their faces to get something that extreme. They execute a lot of people here (no one has the exact number) but there are several billion people, so it's a small percentage.

I know of many examples of people associated with my wife's family and friends who have been in jail for minor offenses and they really are more lenient in most punishment than we are. Recently the small storefront where we buy lots of bootleg DVD's was busted because the cops said the woman had "too many" DVD's on display. They took her away to an education center for 14 days where she was taught the evils of bootleg videos and then released. The cops told her she is not to have any more than 500 bootleg DVD's on display at any time. She now has a display in front of 500 DVD's and she has many more in the back so she says she can get you whatever you want, but she can only display the 500. She talks about how stupid the cops were and the 14 days she was forced to "go away" and not earn a living. She was also fined an amount that was not enough to put her out of business. An interesting part of her story was that when the cops came and told her she had to go with them she said that she needed to make a phone call to someone to come and watch her shop because there is no lock on her stall and she needs to empty it every day. They told her no, she could only make a phone call from the police station, but she persisted complaining that her stock would be stolen if left unattended. They finally relented and let her call her sister to take care of the store. You KNOW that our cops would never be so flexible... I've seen many instances of people here in loud arguments with the cops and they don't get tasered or shot (since they don't have either).

Disclaimer: Whenever I point out the "advantages" of living in China vs living in USA, I'm NOT saying that it's better to live in China, but I will say that the "advantages" of living in the USA are shrinking...

Have you had an opportunity to notice the spies following you around yet?

Haha... I have to admit that my first trip here 18 years ago I was apprehensive about the possibility that I would get into some "trouble" being a westerner in a "communist" country, but on the very first trip I realized that pretty much NOTHING that I thought about China was true. The "government agents" are basically lazy and would like to be doing anything other than working. Most of the infrastructure was not in good repair so their "intelligence" gathering was not very effective. In that last few years, they have improved their network of cameras and their ability to monitor the internet has grown at a staggering rate, but still, the growth in the numbers of people online and the sheer numbers of people walking, driving, and riding every type of wheeled vehicle makes TOTAL supervision impossible. When entering or leaving the country, I have FAR less hassle with the Chinese goons than I do with the goons at home.

If you think I have to worry about being spied on in China, check what the USA goons are doing to spy on everyone...

Your story is awesome. Your comments on cops is almost mirrored here. I was going to turn left safely but illegally, I didn't know the cops here behind me. They honked as I was about to go, so I wouldn't go.

The police here are not lazy people, but they don't want to be bothered with your paper work and leave the vast majority of the people alone. One example I like is wifi. In Korea, you're not supposed to be anonymous online. But coffee shops all over have free wifi anyways. The big brand names like starbucks has wifi registration. None of the others do.

Haha... I have to admit that my first trip here 18 years ago I was apprehensive about the possibility that I would get into some "trouble" being a westerner in a "communist" country, but on the very first trip I realized that pretty much NOTHING that I thought about China was true. The "government agents" are basically lazy and would like to be doing anything other than working. Most of the infrastructure was not in good repair so their "intelligence" gathering was not very effective. In that last few years, they have improved their network of cameras and their ability to monitor the internet has grown at a staggering rate, but still, the growth in the numbers of people online and the sheer numbers of people walking, driving, and riding every type of wheeled vehicle makes TOTAL supervision impossible. When entering or leaving the country, I have FAR less hassle with the Chinese goons than I do with the goons at home.

If you think I have to worry about being spied on in China, check what the USA goons are doing to spy on everyone...

That is true everywhere in the world.I think that the USA is the only place in the world where government agents like doing their job.In other countries unless someone from the top presses them to do something,they are more than glad to sit in the offices.

Chinese "patriotism"... It's almost non-existant. As a "Christian Anarchist", I do not like "patriotism" of any kind as I see it as worshiping a false god. I see only our Creator as having true authority over us and our fiction "government" is supposed to be (in theory) CREATED by us in the position of SERVANT. Since when do "masters" worship their "servants"? It's abby-normal !! "Pledge" to a flag? What's that all about??

Anyway, as far a patriotism in China, look out. The Chinese are NOT very patriotic because they DO NOT worship their government goons. In that last 18 years I've looked for the signs of patriotism here and until recently I saw NONE. There were almost NO Chinese displaying their flag. In the last couple of years though I've seen a small increase in people putting the flag on their car or hanging in their shop. It's still a very small number but I think US policy is actually helping to foster greater Chinese patriotism. They resent our interference in their border disputes and international dealings. I fear a "patriotic" China. Right now it would be difficult to get these kids to march off to war, but if China ever became as "patriotic" as the brainwashed masses in the USA, look out. Those billions of soldiers would be unstoppable. Lets just leave them alone and they will never get that way...

Hmm, when I went to Macau and Hong Kong, I felt a similar experience although those places are more "westernized" due to status of being former colonies. Buddhism and catholism were partially merged in Macau I recalled.

"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,
nothing is going to get better. It's not." - Dr. Seuss, from The Lorax

I'm currently in China (my wife is Chinese and we come here a couple of times per year to visit) and I've been traveling to China for about 18 years. Some observations this trip in no particular order.

We arrived about a week ago in Beijing and traveled by train to Wuhan where my wife's father is in the hospital to have bladder stones removed and prostate TERP. We have been visiting him in the hospital every day. Since my wife is an internal medicine doctor in the US, we have been making comparisons to the differences in health care. The same procedure in the US would require the patient to show up the night before surgery having not eaten for 12 hours. Here, the patient is kept in the hospital for about 6 days before the surgery and on IV fluids for several days. My wife's father is borderline diabetic so his sugar levels must be monitored, yet here, they consider fructose to be "safe" for diabetics so they gave him IV fructose most every day. They then express concern about his diet because his sugar levels were shooting up to levels we had never observed at home. My wife mentioned this, but did not want to make too many waves so she did not press the issue. As far as procedures, they seem to have at least as good a result here as in the US and the doctors are very skilled in their area of expertise. A major difference is in nursing. Here the family is responsible for the greater patient care including food, turning, bed pans, etc. The nurses take care of hanging the IV's, connecting to patient monitors, and blood testing. The family is responsible for WATCHING the patient monitor and calling the nurse if any levels are out of range. We spent one night there right after the operation and after that, we hired a sitter to take on those responsibilities. Post-op they usually have the patient in for about 7 days vs our 3 days. He is post-op 4 days today and doing fine.

More later...

How can you have an analysis of chinese health care without mentioning chinese traditional medicine?

Chinese has two health care systems that function side by side. Traditional "western" medicine and Chinese herbal and holistic medicine such as acupuncture etc. Unlike the USA where we pretty much guarantee that anyone can walk into a hospital and be treated whether you can pay or not, in China you actually have to be able to afford the treatment (although there is a "government" health plan that covers everyone who has worked for the government or is on one of the very limited welfare programs). Since many people have to pay for their own health care, they can easily opt for the Chinese medicine instead of western medicine. It's all about what they feel most comfortable with and they can afford. In this regard, they are more "market" oriented than we are.

To change the subject, we had a different taxi driver today who was VERY anti-government. He (as many people in China) feels that the USA does everything right and the PRC does everything wrong. He stated how the big government "in crowd" makes all the money and makes all the rules that keep everyone poor except for the in crowd. He was quite bitter about how the inflation rate never keeps up with earnings so everyone gets poorer each year. This seems to be the way of the working class in China as in the USA. The elite are manipulating the markets so that they reap all the profits while the working stiff gets to pay the bills. I did learn an interesting fact about tickets here in China. It seems that all those cameras that are busy snapping photos of "violators" just keep piling up on the "tab" of the license plate. I asked him how they notify you of a violation and he says it all comes due when you go to renew your plate every year. Imagine going to renew your plate and finding you had 20 moving violations during the year and now you must pay them all to get your plate renewed. It doesn't even matter WHO was driving the vehicle, all offenses are pegged to the CAR, not the driver. Of course their fines are only a fraction of what we pay, but they also make much less per year than we do...

Chinese has two health care systems that function side by side. Traditional "western" medicine and Chinese herbal and holistic medicine such as acupuncture etc. Unlike the USA where we pretty much guarantee that anyone can walk into a hospital and be treated whether you can pay or not, in China you actually have to be able to afford the treatment (although there is a "government" health plan that covers everyone who has worked for the government or is on one of the very limited welfare programs). Since many people have to pay for their own health care, they can easily opt for the Chinese medicine instead of western medicine. It's all about what they feel most comfortable with and they can afford. In this regard, they are more "market" oriented than we are.

To change the subject, we had a different taxi driver today who was VERY anti-government. He (as many people in China) feels that the USA does everything right and the PRC does everything wrong. He stated how the big government "in crowd" makes all the money and makes all the rules that keep everyone poor except for the in crowd. He was quite bitter about how the inflation rate never keeps up with earnings so everyone gets poorer each year. This seems to be the way of the working class in China as in the USA. The elite are manipulating the markets so that they reap all the profits while the working stiff gets to pay the bills. I did learn an interesting fact about tickets here in China. It seems that all those cameras that are busy snapping photos of "violators" just keep piling up on the "tab" of the license plate. I asked him how they notify you of a violation and he says it all comes due when you go to renew your plate every year. Imagine going to renew your plate and finding you had 20 moving violations during the year and now you must pay them all to get your plate renewed. It doesn't even matter WHO was driving the vehicle, all offenses are pegged to the CAR, not the driver. Of course their fines are only a fraction of what we pay, but they also make much less per year than we do...

Here are some photos I took in 2010 and they have the gps co-oridinates so you can check where they were taken. I have since forgotten my password so I cannot add more (and I used a phony email address to set up the account so I cannot recover the password). I might start another account, but I really don't like giving all my info to google, so maybe I won't. Perhaps I can find another more anonymous picture sharing site...

Another taxi driver (who also has nothing but bad things to say about the PRC) was telling us about his 20 year old son who has spent the last 10 years at the Shaolin monastery learning Kung-Fu. We will be meeting him on Thursday when we go to the train station for our trip back to Beijing. This kid has got to be good after 10 years there. The father wants to see if we can get his son immigrated to the US in some way. I don't know if we can help, but we are going to try to contact some universities to see if they want to sponsor a Kung-Fu master for their sports program. I don't know if they have any kind of martial-arts programs in the US colleges, but we will try at least.

This guy is so typical of most Chinese we know. They think that EVERYTHING in the USA is great and EVERYTHING here is bad. They don't know the kind of taxation and regulation we live under. In China there is way less of both (but it helps to have connections to get ahead). Even though this idea prevails, we know of several Chinese who have immigrated to USA only to decide after 10 years that maybe China has more opportunity and they have returned.

He also told us the reason that so many cars have appeared in the last 5 years. It seems that they have embraced "financing" for automobiles and he says that pretty much anyone can get approved for a loan for a car. Of course we know from experience that stimulating the market with loans that some will not be able to pay back is a real bad idea, but I guess they haven't learned this yet...

I'm currently in China (my wife is Chinese and we come here a couple of times per year to visit) and I've been traveling to China for about 18 years. Some observations this trip in no particular order.

We arrived about a week ago in Beijing and traveled by train to Wuhan where my wife's father is in the hospital to have bladder stones removed and prostate TERP. We have been visiting him in the hospital every day. Since my wife is an internal medicine doctor in the US, we have been making comparisons to the differences in health care. The same procedure in the US would require the patient to show up the night before surgery having not eaten for 12 hours. Here, the patient is kept in the hospital for about 6 days before the surgery and on IV fluids for several days. My wife's father is borderline diabetic so his sugar levels must be monitored, yet here, they consider fructose to be "safe" for diabetics so they gave him IV fructose most every day. They then express concern about his diet because his sugar levels were shooting up to levels we had never observed at home. My wife mentioned this, but did not want to make too many waves so she did not press the issue. As far as procedures, they seem to have at least as good a result here as in the US and the doctors are very skilled in their area of expertise. A major difference is in nursing. Here the family is responsible for the greater patient care including food, turning, bed pans, etc. The nurses take care of hanging the IV's, connecting to patient monitors, and blood testing. The family is responsible for WATCHING the patient monitor and calling the nurse if any levels are out of range. We spent one night there right after the operation and after that, we hired a sitter to take on those responsibilities. Post-op they usually have the patient in for about 7 days vs our 3 days. He is post-op 4 days today and doing fine.

More later...

Very interesting. My daughter is from China. (Qinghai Province) We adopted her at age 6. She has a complex heart defect. Anyway I got to look at her medical files from China and she was in the hospital for several periods in her early life. She had an open heart surgery in Beijing at age 2 and was in hospital for almost a month from what I could understand. Several pneumonia hospital stays over a month long as well. She since had an open heart surgery here in US and it was considered a long stay at 13 days. She wants to travel back to China (she is 9 now) but I am too leary if something were to come up as she is on blood thinners. I cannot imagine how she would fare in a Chinese hospital because she has a very rare condition.... Hope your Father in law does ok!

Very interesting. My daughter is from China. (Qinghai Province) We adopted her at age 6. She has a complex heart defect. Anyway I got to look at her medical files from China and she was in the hospital for several periods in her early life. She had an open heart surgery in Beijing at age 2 and was in hospital for almost a month from what I could understand. Several pneumonia hospital stays over a month long as well. She since had an open heart surgery here in US and it was considered a long stay at 13 days. She wants to travel back to China (she is 9 now) but I am too leary if something were to come up as she is on blood thinners. I cannot imagine how she would fare in a Chinese hospital because she has a very rare condition.... Hope your Father in law does ok!

My wife finished her BS degree in China and then immigrated to the USA where she (after we were married) completed medical school and practices in Internal Medicine. She frequently does rounds in the hospital where we live. She made several comparisons to her father's stay in the hospital here and how we do it in the US (her father is doing great). When all is said and done, she says she would much rather be in the hospitals in USA. With her father, they put him in the hospital for what we would regard as an unusual pre-op stay of 6 days before the operation. We would do all tests and prep as out-patient care. Here they kept him in the hospital for about 7 days post-op even though he was in fine condition after 3 days and in the US, he would have been discharged after being able to walk. Here they kept him on IV drip with some fructose for every day except for discharge day and in the US we do not give IV nutrition to anyone who can eat and drink (for the most part). As he is borderline diabetic, the fructose was driving his sugar WAY up beyond anything he would have experienced at home. The hospital tried to blame the readings on the bread he was eating as they don't believe fructose drives up blood sugar (hint: it does).

Anyway, the bottom line is her father feels better than he says he can express in words and the bill came to about $10,000. Not cheap by any means, but still less than in the US. His government insurance will cover most of the bill. If we have a choice, we will have all health care done in USA...

I'm also an American living in China due to my wife. I'd like to add my comments:

Originally Posted by ChristianAnarchist

It's interesting talking to the locals (through my wife as interpreter). Most Chinese are guilty of "America worship". They are completely convinced that in the USA we are walking on streets of gold and everyone is happy.

Funny you say that because the way my wife and I see it, the Chinese government are trying to be more like the US government, but only in the bad ways. By that, I mean adding street cameras, monopolizing production of pork to a small numbers of farmers who provide most of the meat, policy of aggression in foreign countries, etc.

They really have low regard for their own "government" and freely express it.

Just not where public officials can hear it.

One taxi driver was heaping praise on the USA and bad-mouthing the Beijing masters. When I asked him whether he believes any of the "news" in China, he was instant in his response "All Bullshit!!" He does not believe any of it.

Chinese citizens are smarter than American citizens in that sense.

They are stuck in a system where the only people who "own" taxi companies are wealthy individuals with strong family ties to the biggest government officials.

Yep, everything is owned by the government.

Originally Posted by ChristianAnarchist

(but then most of our churches seem to be in bed with the government so that's not saying much).

Those connected to the government do the best here, just like the US, but more.

One thing I've learned from traveling is that it seems that all people have the same basic goals. They want to care for and advance their position and the position of their families. Families care for and nurture their children and try to make their lives better. There will always be dis-functional families of course, but those are the minority.

Unlike the welfare state in this country. People believe in taking care of themselves rather than believe in the god of government.

Most of the people live in the cities because that's where the opportunities are and where they can "get ahead". There are vast areas in the west of China that are almost uninhabited.

That's what they say, but those people also live crammed in shitty apartments. It boggles the mind.

I was saying to my wife that kids who come to the big cities to "get ahead" should stay in the countryside and learn farming. She agrees with me, but farmers are looked down on in the Chinese community so much that they can't take the shame.

Originally Posted by ChristianAnarchist

China is pretty safe. I know there are drugs and crime here but the most I've ever witnessed is shoplifting and minor theft. I've never seen anyone with a gun other than sometimes a military guard at a military post (and not many of those). The cops don't have guns so you're chance of being shot is pretty small here (I sound like an anti-gun nut...). If you are caught doing something the government thugs don't like (such as bad mouthing them) you could find yourself at the end of one of their guns when they execute you, but you really have to throw it in their faces to get something that extreme. They execute a lot of people here (no one has the exact number) but there are several billion people, so it's a small percentage.

One thing I like about here is that cops don't bother you. I get nervous around cops in the US because they'll bust you for small infraction. I never felt safe around a cop, but felt like someone I want to avoid because I'll get harassed.

In a way, China is more free that the US, but like Anarchist said, as long as you lay off certain taboos like bad mouthing the government, government leaves you alone.

Disclaimer: Whenever I point out the "advantages" of living in China vs living in USA, I'm NOT saying that it's better to live in China, but I will say that the "advantages" of living in the USA are shrinking...

I would add that my "viewpoint" is skewed by my age. I'm 60 and when I was in 8th grade I would ride the city bus (St. Paul, MN) once a week with my rifle which I brought to school for rifle club. In high school, we would sometimes put a couple of guns in the back seat and stop to shoot in a field not far from home. My how things have changed...

Really, we had a pretty large amount of freedom in the 60's. My first driver's license had no photo and was just printed card stock. Auto insurance was optional and the cops would pretty much leave you alone (kind of like the cops in China do now). We would work in the fields picking produce and get paid in cash at the end of the day. I could open a "passbook savings account" without ID and without a SSN...

I just posted this on The Daily Paul under the topic "What Does The Rest of the World Think About These Good Old U.S. of A?"

From some old Chinese...
Submitted by ChristianAnarchist on Wed, 01/09/2013 - 02:12.

Just posed the question regarding guns to my wife's parents here in Wuhan. First I asked if they see coverage of the gun issue on Chinese news and they said there's quite a lot of coverage here. I then asked what the news says should be done about it and her father said it's "controversial" (and he actually knew about the NRA). (My wife's parents have spent about 7 of the last 16 years living with us in the USA so they are familiar with guns). I then asked them what their opinion was and her father said "some gun control" and her mother said "no guns". I then asked them if they thought the "Rape of Nanking" would have happened if the peasants had firearms. Silence...